Deadly LAX shooting: Questions over positioning of airport police

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"Multiple patient" incident at LAX 11-1-13 (photo from KTLA via CNN)

Deadly LAX shooting: Questions over positioning of airport police

"Multiple patient" incident at LAX 11-1-13 (photo from KTLA via CNN)

LOS ANGELES (CNN) — Even as airport police receive praise for chasing a gunman through Los Angeles International Airport, the shooting has raised questions about changes in their positioning — both their locations when shots rang out, and why a recent repositioning happened in the first place.

Airport police Chief Patrick Gannon elaborated about the strategic shift Saturday, one day after a Transportation Security Administration officer was killed and two others were wounded in Terminal 3. In the past year, he decided to move officers from behind a TSA security checkpoint to in front of it, where they also took on “greater responsibilities.”

“The threat … at the airport does not exist behind security at that podium, the threat exists from the curbline on,” Gannon said. “So … we have our people stationed throughout the airport.

“That particular individual” — he added, referring to the nearest police officer to the site of Friday’s initial shooting — “was just moved to the front part of the airport.”

Was there anything more behind the shift? A law enforcement source told CNN on Saturday that airport police officers had complained to their union about being “bored with the assignment” of being stationed behind the TSA checkpoint.

Then came “a fix” agreed to by TSA and airport police management, to keep officers in the public areas but position them in front of the checkpoints, including the one where Friday’s shooting began. Part of the deal was that officers would never be more than two minutes from the checkpoing screening area, if needed, according to the law enforcement source.

While Gannon hasn’t address these claims of “bored” and “distracted” officers, he said Saturday that the FBI has indicated his officers “were 60 seconds behind the suspect.” However it was decided where they’d be standing, he insisted the two were where they were supposed to be, and did what they supposed to do.

“Our officers were deployed where they were supposed to be and performed heroically in this particular matter,” Gannon said.

‘Hey, are you TSA?’

The horror began around 9:20 a.m. Friday, on an otherwise normal morning in a characteristically busy airport. A man walked up to a checkpoint in Terminal 3, just like so many others queuing in line.

“(He) pulled an assault rifle out of a bag and began to open fire,” Gannon said.

But not just at anyone — at a TSA officer.

As the gunman walked through the airport, he asked some — like traveler Leon Saryan — a simple question: “Hey, are you TSA?”

Saryan told CNN’s Anderson Cooper he was asked this by a man who’d just “grazed” a TSA officer with a bullet, then walked “calmly” toward him through the terminal.

“I just shook my head,” Saryan said. “And he kept going.”

By then, people were sprinting for their lives — down escalators, out emergency exit doors, cramming into bathrooms and first-class lounges, anything to get out of the line of fire.

The shots finally stopped at the end of Terminal 3, when the two airport police officers shot the suspect multiple times in the chest, an intelligence source briefed by Los Angeles police told CNN. In addition to the slain officer, two other TSA officers were, said the federal agency’s chief John Pistole in a letter to employees.

They carried him out, handcuffed to a gurney — leaving behind what police described as an “assault rifle” and more than 100 rounds of unspent ammunition.

The suspect has been identified by authorities as 23-year-old Paul Anthony Ciancia.

Why did the gunman set out on a deadly course Friday? Despite being wounded, the suspect theoretically could tell police that. But some clues have emerged — including that authorities found he’d been carrying a rant that appeared to refer to the New World Order plus anti-TSA and anti-government claims, a federal law enforcement official said Saturday.

It’s not clear what gave rise to the references, and federal investigators have found no known links to known groups or anything in the suspect’s background to explain them. The New World Order is generally considered to be a conspiracy theory in which people suspect a group of elites is conspiring to form an authoritarian, one-world government.

Another clue to Ciancia’s state of mind came from his family. He lives in Los Angeles, but his family back in New Jersey were concerned about him, said Allen Cummings, chief of police in Pennsville, New Jersey.

Ciancia’s family became concerned in recent days after he sent his brother and father “angry, rambling” texts venting about the government, living in Los Angeles and his unhappiness generally, an intelligence source said.

But despite the unsettling text, Ciancia’s family was still surprised by Friday’s events.

“They’re upset,” Cummings told reporters. “I mean this is a shock to them, it’s a shock to our community.”

Neighbor of victim: ‘This is a senseless thing’

Ciancia was being treated for his injuries at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, according to an intelligence source. So, too, is one other person — the hospital said Saturday one person is in critical condition and the other is in fair, without specifying their names, and noted another person was treated and released Friday.

Two other patients were transported to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, said David Klurad, a trauma surgeon there.

Klurad described one as a “middle-aged” person with minor injuries from being shot in the shoulder. The other had no signs of life when he arrived at the hospital, the surgeon said Friday.

It’s presumed that fatality is Gerardo Hernandez, the lone person killed in the shooting according to authorities.

He’s the first TSA officer to die in the line of duty since the agency was founded in 2001. The late officer was working as a travel document checker at the time, TSA workers’ union and federal sources say.

Hernandez, who would have turned 40 next week, was married with children, neighbor Ken Wong told CNN affiliate KCAL-KCBS.

“What a terrible thing,” said Wong, who lived in the same Porter Ranch neighborhood as Hernandez in north Los Angeles. “Here’s a man trying to serve his country, do his job well, and support his family.

“And this is a senseless thing that happened.”

The chaos also affected more than 165,000 passengers impacted by the ordeal, as the airport widely known as LAX shut down for hours. The airport estimated that over 1,500 scheduled flights were somehow “impacted.”

Terminal 3, where the shooting and ensuing investigation took place, was declared “fully reopened and operational” Saturday afternoon by Gina Marie Lindsey, head of Los Angeles World Wirports.